Epilogue

My son's dog died last Friday morning. He was a large mongrel, mainly German shepherd, and he came to us with the name "Gin," which we changed to "Jimmy." He originally belonged to a neighbor of ours who neglected him so shamefully that you can barely say that he belonged to him. Asher befriended him, and he started frequenting our house, walking with us when we walked our other dog. He used to follow our daughter to school in the morning, braving the rush hour traffic, and when she went downtown with friends to sit in pubs (something she did a lot when she was in high school), he used to follow her and sit outside, waiting for her. Here's a picture of her with Jimmy
We started feeding him - he was emaciated, undernourished. For a long time he accepted food from us, but he wouldn't come into the house. When he overcame that reluctance, we started taking care of him - he was filthy and infested with ticks. We also bought a leash for him. He followed us wherever we went by foot, and we were afraid he'd get run over. He was always a very emotional dog, sensitive and affectionate with us but aggressive against other male dogs in the neighborhood. He got into several pretty serious fights. Even when he was old and lame, there were certain other dogs that he regarded as enemies, and he was ready to fight them, no matter what.
Jimmy lived to a ripe old age for a dog of his size. He was fourteen when he died. He had been failing for over a year. He limped. We had him x-rayed and tried all sorts of treatment, including acupuncture, but nothing helped except steroids. By the end, just walking around the block left him exhausted - but he still loved going out. I used to say that if I ever got as excited about anything I was doing as he did about going out for a walk, I would be a happy man.
For a few months before he died, he groaned almost constantly. He was clearly in serious pain.
On the morning of his death, he didn't have enough energy to go out. First he lay in front of our bedroom door. Then he managed to move a few feet to the front hall, where he lay down quietly. He had no appetite, but he drank some water. About two hours after he taken up his final position, he stood up, and we thought at first that he had recovered enough strength to go out. But then he had a kind of convulsion, lay down again, and in a few minutes he was dead.
He didn't seem to be in unusual pain during the two hours he lay at our doorway, waiting to die with no fear of death, no idea of what was coming. It just happened to him.